Kwila

• Large hardwood tree
• Grows to 40m high
• Trunk is 0.6m diameter
• Often a bushy tree forming a spreading canopy

• Johnstone River and Daintree areas of North Queensland
• Malaysia
• Fiji
• Vietnam
• Philippines
• Madagascar
• Papua New Guinea
• Thailand
• Solomon Islands
• New Caledonia
• Vanuatu
• Samoa

Colour

• Heartwood yellowish-brown or orange-brown when first cut, turning darker with age to brown or deep reddish-brown
• Sapwood white, pale yellow or buff and sharply distinct from heartwood

Grain

• Grain varies but usually interlocked or wavy.
• Texture is coarse but even.
• Attractive figure (pattern) on back-sawn material.

Engineering

• Cross arms
• Bridge building
• Piles
• Sleepers
• Posts
• Wharfing
• Mining timbers

Construction

• Framing
• Decking
• Treads
• General construction

Decorative

• Quality furniture, outdoor furniture
• Turnery, parquetry

Others

• Boat building (especially for decking)
• Vats
• Musical instruments
• Tool handles

• Density: 830kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; about 1.2m³ of seasoned sawn timber per tonne.
• Strength groups: S2 unseasoned, SD3 seasoned.
• Stress grades: F11, F14, F17, F22 (unseasoned), F14, F17, F22, F27 (seasoned) when visually stress-graded according to AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
• Joint groups: J3 unseasoned; JD2 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% MC: 2.6% (tangential), 1.2% (radial).
• Unit shrinkage: 0.30 % (tangential) 0.19 % (radial)—these values apply to timber reconditioned after seasoning.
• Durability above-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy more than 40 years).
• Durability in-ground: Class 3 (life expectancy 5–15 years).
• Lyctine susceptibility: untreated sapwood susceptible to lyctid borer attack.
• Termite resistance: resistant.
• Preservation: sapwood readily impregnates with preservative.
• Seasoning: seasons well with kiln or air-drying, with little degrade and very little shrinkage or movement.
• Hardness: hard (rated 2 on a 6-class scale) to indent and work with hand tools.
• Machining: working properties vary; cuts cleanly but may blunt or gum cutting edges; cutting angle should be reduced to 20° when planing quarter-sawn stock; turns well.
• Fixing: can split unless pre-bored, but holds fastenings well.
• Gluing: glues satisfactorily except with casein glues.
• Finishing: paints, stains and polishes well, but gum bleed-through or oily patches may affect the finish.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: sharply distinct from the heartwood
• Heartwood: dark red-brown or yellow-brown
• Texture: coarse and even; grain often interlocked

Wood structure

• Vessels: moderately large, visible to naked eye; short radial pairs or multiples and solitary cells; often visible sulphur yellow and dark-coloured deposits; vessel lines prominent on longitudinal surfaces

• Boland, DJ, Brooker, MIH, Chippendale, GM, Hall, N, Hyland, BPM, Johnston, RD, Kleinig, DA and Turner, JD 2006, Forest trees of Australia, 5th ed., CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.
• Bootle, K 2005, Wood in Australia: Types, properties and uses, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
• Ilic, J 1991, CSIRO atlas of hardwoods, Crawford House Press, Bathurst, Australia.
• Queensland Government, DAF 2018, Construction timbers in Queensland: properties and specifications for satisfactory performance of construction timbers in Queensland. Class 1 and Class 10 buildings, Books 1 & 2, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Brisbane.
• Standards Australia, 2000, AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes, Standards Australia International, Strathfield, NSW.